A small update. My main computer blew up last week which has left me on my reserve old IDE machine. Thank hellfully I backed up just about everything. So the BJ movie is safe, Lost in Paradise is safe as is my latest soundtrack. However it is more than likely going to cause a few problems in terms of editing the BJ movie, as the PC I'm on now struggles to run Notepad. Add to that a few busy weekends - so I would say a delay on the movie is inevitable. Which will surely annoy some people as I have been aiming for Halloween.
That said, and it was probably the fun of Mittens that made me do it, I've returned to trying to organise AdventureX, which is a kind of show and tell on a public scale for amateur adventure game developers and fans. I'll have the website online very soon. And I'm excited that a chap who designed Discworld Noir is coming to the event!!
I've just read a Czech review of my game Night of the Testicle - it made me chuckle! They gave it 60% which is very pleasing for such a time-waste of a game. The player rating of 18% is probably more accurate ;) But that along with other comments here and there have inspired me to get on with the final (body) part - Back to the Bollocks!!1
Misja has been posting updates to backgrounds he's working on in facebook for Fountain of Youth and the team are making sure our Xmas game Passage of Saints is ready in time for Christmas. Also - my team of Kinky Islanders are working hard on some amazing work. The assets are building, it's going to be a very sweet looking game.
I've recently finished a preliminary version soundtrack for Unga Needs Mumba which is a new AGS game in the works by Koodn. It appears he's had it in the works for quite some time now, it's a superb little adventure and I'm really pleased I was able to write some music for it. As I write this paragraph I've just had a PM from the man himself saying he's finished implementing the music, so I should have a preview tonight or tomorrow - woot! Work continues on my Living Nightmare: Freedom soundtrack. And as mentioned earlier Passage of Saints for which I wrote music for a year ago will hopefully be out this Xmas with that old but still unheard soundtrack. Once the game is out I'll also put up my ex-Primordia soundtrack here, but will wait til it's out as my soundtrack's track names may give away the story/puzzles.
So in the gaming world things are going nicely. Lost In Paradise the second version has been coming along well - I'm really pleased and actually quite happy it's gone a second time, it's given me a chance to re-work certain puzzles, knock out a few crappy camera angles and enhance animations and characters a bit more. Also been proof-reading a game called The Visitor which is a cool tale of an alien and I highly suggest checking it out when it comes out over at AGS in the next couple of weeks!
Got a couple of job applications on the go (online ones, that take ages to write) so I'm hoping I may have a career of some sort in the near future (and moneys!).. Other than that there's not much else to tell. I used Tesco online delivery for the first time, it's pretty damn cool :D Online grocery shopping can certainly be added to my list of random chores I like doing online.
That's all. Thanks for reading :)
Thursday, 13 October 2011
Saturday, 13 August 2011
Updates
Just a quick one to say Chance of the Dead was well received which is great news! I'll put up the music on s7 very soon. Also Kinky Island production continues and the guys are creating retro wonders! Mittens is just around the corner so I've been working on Ben Jordan Must Die to give the folks a preview before its release around Halloween.
I recently added "A Christopher Jones Adventure" to the AGS DB which was a test game from many years ago - the first time I tinkered with including speech. It's barely worth the download but if you use AGS and you want a quick chuckle..
I also found out last night of someone that contributed some stuff to s7 website - drinks at the pub! He submitted some flash games a few years ago and I always assumed he was just some random guy from Lithuania or something...haha :D
That's all for now..
I recently added "A Christopher Jones Adventure" to the AGS DB which was a test game from many years ago - the first time I tinkered with including speech. It's barely worth the download but if you use AGS and you want a quick chuckle..
I also found out last night of someone that contributed some stuff to s7 website - drinks at the pub! He submitted some flash games a few years ago and I always assumed he was just some random guy from Lithuania or something...haha :D
That's all for now..
Thursday, 14 July 2011
no-more-dia
sadly my involvement with Primordia has been terminated. A publishing deal with WEG has proven my music to be non commercially viable. So i am sad now. Its production has helped me through some tough times. a great game - the team did everything they could to keep me on board but in order to get the deal dave has requested a new composer. I owe it to victor cos he's really been a dude. but anyway yeah shit :'(
Wednesday, 6 July 2011
Mods' Top 10...APPLICATIONS
Firstly, some great news for fans of Kinky Island - we now have a resident background artist meaning the team is once again 100% in-tact :) You can expect some full news on this soon. Our new background artist for the game has a very impressive talent with retro point & click backgrounds - you will not be disappointed!
BUT NOW - TEH MAIN EVENT. MODS' TOP 10 APPS! I'm afraid this WILL lead to disappointment :P
At number 10: Sound Recorder (Win 98/XP)
Where would we be, or have been in the early millennium, if clicking a button to record your voice had not come any simpler? Gone are the days of classic sound recorder, which was in time replaced with some shit alternative with one button only, the record button. No sine waves, no simplicity - just shit. For that reason, original Sound Recorder is in my list of top 10 applications :D
For number 9 it's: Windows Media Player 6
Again it's a simple edition of a media player that was mandatory through the Windows 95 and 98 period, until the all new media player came out which just sucked balls. Alright, MPC6 didn't have a mixer, nor could you slow WMV files down to 50%. But there WAS a time when MPC6 found the needed codecs with ease, and it always loaded within 2 seconds of double clicking the shortcut, not 10, like all versions since.
At number 8: mIRC/MSChat
Basic chat applications don't come more basic than mIRC. It's quick, simple, free, easy, ASCII-y and useful. MSChat on the other hand added a whole new element - cartoon characters in a comic strip that looked weird. The days of what character was used for which chatter are long gone, but they were good days indeed.
So then my number screen 7: Pazera (Free) Conversion Tools
Whether you want to convert a wav to mp3 or flv to avi or any number of different settings, Paz tools remain my favourite. They're simple and quick - they don't look like some programs that spice up their interface to hide very crap functions - Paz tools do what they say on the tin and you know what you're getting when you use it. The conversion quality is brilliant, and I highly recommend them for anyone tackling multiple conversion tasks. Pazzzahhhhh!
Numero 6: Calculator (Windows)
Self explanatory. Without a calculator, my brain would need to resort to maths, so I'm glad it's always there, and functional. Nuff said!
Halfway through, my number 5: AVG Free Anti Virus
It's almost cool to have AVG Free Anti Virus, especially if you're a cheapskate bum like me! The term free-loader has never been so true with this software - the best of the best free anti virus, that uses technology you would usually pay a monthly fee for with Symnatec or Dr. Nortoid. Even McAffee have come back from the dead to plunder your cash for a service AVG can do just as well -- for free!
At lucky number 4: GetRight
The days of dial-up would never have worked out for many of us without an application like GetRight. Designed to resume downloads, it meant a feeling of safety when you knew connection problems would be a-foot. I still use it today, and I'm glad it still exists - in fairly simple form (it hasn't been Vista-ized yet). GetRight is really GoodMate and its ability to resume downloads is as amazing. In fact, it's like magic right in front of your eyes. Except when the server in question says NO, PISS OFF - you are NOT resuming that file!
So I reach my top 3. And speaking of number 3, its: Google Earth
It's a bloomin' map of the world that you can scale to about a hundred feet. Free information doesn't come any better than that. Everything it stands for is brilliant - that is our world, in an application. We can find anywhere, and street view will let us get a feel for a location - people also find oddities within the map which adds a new element. Live weather radar makes it a must for checking the immediate forecast, and renders weather reports on TV useless. All ship wrecks are listed, and so many other wonderful things...So much to explore. This is hands down one of my favorite applications of all time!
Number 2: Outlook Express
I don't know why, but without it, I just wouldn't exists as a modern man. Sure, it's not perfect. Sure, it's fucking annoying when you have to re-install Windows and all your emails & contacts have disappeared - but providing you've got the mail server, Outlook will be your friend in times of email need. Outlook has seen me through many correspondences, from game deals, to famous people, to getting myself fired, to friends, to appointments, to worldly issues... All manner of things pass in and out of Outlook, so I can't really be anything other than thankful for that :)
And finally, TEH NUMBER 1 APPLICATION IS....... NOTEPAD!
Notepad is the unsung hero of applications in my opinion. It's the one place you can write and write and never worry about file size. It's a copy and paste haven for serialz, draft letters and game designs. Notepad is often the middleman in my life. Something I will have written in a notebook usually gets transferred into the textual black and white goodness of Notepad, before becoming the product of whatever the idea that is written, is. Wordpad never caught on, and people produced only shit documents in it. MS Word didn't even come with Windows unless you bought a bundle. But Notepad has been there, through and through, since Windows 3.1 - and has never changed. Simplicity to write and re-arrange - here's to you, Notepad :)
And that's it. The important part was about Kinky Island :P
BUT NOW - TEH MAIN EVENT. MODS' TOP 10 APPS! I'm afraid this WILL lead to disappointment :P
At number 10: Sound Recorder (Win 98/XP)
Where would we be, or have been in the early millennium, if clicking a button to record your voice had not come any simpler? Gone are the days of classic sound recorder, which was in time replaced with some shit alternative with one button only, the record button. No sine waves, no simplicity - just shit. For that reason, original Sound Recorder is in my list of top 10 applications :D
For number 9 it's: Windows Media Player 6
Again it's a simple edition of a media player that was mandatory through the Windows 95 and 98 period, until the all new media player came out which just sucked balls. Alright, MPC6 didn't have a mixer, nor could you slow WMV files down to 50%. But there WAS a time when MPC6 found the needed codecs with ease, and it always loaded within 2 seconds of double clicking the shortcut, not 10, like all versions since.
At number 8: mIRC/MSChat
Basic chat applications don't come more basic than mIRC. It's quick, simple, free, easy, ASCII-y and useful. MSChat on the other hand added a whole new element - cartoon characters in a comic strip that looked weird. The days of what character was used for which chatter are long gone, but they were good days indeed.
So then my number screen 7: Pazera (Free) Conversion Tools
Whether you want to convert a wav to mp3 or flv to avi or any number of different settings, Paz tools remain my favourite. They're simple and quick - they don't look like some programs that spice up their interface to hide very crap functions - Paz tools do what they say on the tin and you know what you're getting when you use it. The conversion quality is brilliant, and I highly recommend them for anyone tackling multiple conversion tasks. Pazzzahhhhh!
Numero 6: Calculator (Windows)
Self explanatory. Without a calculator, my brain would need to resort to maths, so I'm glad it's always there, and functional. Nuff said!
Halfway through, my number 5: AVG Free Anti Virus
It's almost cool to have AVG Free Anti Virus, especially if you're a cheapskate bum like me! The term free-loader has never been so true with this software - the best of the best free anti virus, that uses technology you would usually pay a monthly fee for with Symnatec or Dr. Nortoid. Even McAffee have come back from the dead to plunder your cash for a service AVG can do just as well -- for free!
At lucky number 4: GetRight
The days of dial-up would never have worked out for many of us without an application like GetRight. Designed to resume downloads, it meant a feeling of safety when you knew connection problems would be a-foot. I still use it today, and I'm glad it still exists - in fairly simple form (it hasn't been Vista-ized yet). GetRight is really GoodMate and its ability to resume downloads is as amazing. In fact, it's like magic right in front of your eyes. Except when the server in question says NO, PISS OFF - you are NOT resuming that file!
So I reach my top 3. And speaking of number 3, its: Google Earth
It's a bloomin' map of the world that you can scale to about a hundred feet. Free information doesn't come any better than that. Everything it stands for is brilliant - that is our world, in an application. We can find anywhere, and street view will let us get a feel for a location - people also find oddities within the map which adds a new element. Live weather radar makes it a must for checking the immediate forecast, and renders weather reports on TV useless. All ship wrecks are listed, and so many other wonderful things...So much to explore. This is hands down one of my favorite applications of all time!
Number 2: Outlook Express
I don't know why, but without it, I just wouldn't exists as a modern man. Sure, it's not perfect. Sure, it's fucking annoying when you have to re-install Windows and all your emails & contacts have disappeared - but providing you've got the mail server, Outlook will be your friend in times of email need. Outlook has seen me through many correspondences, from game deals, to famous people, to getting myself fired, to friends, to appointments, to worldly issues... All manner of things pass in and out of Outlook, so I can't really be anything other than thankful for that :)
And finally, TEH NUMBER 1 APPLICATION IS....... NOTEPAD!
Notepad is the unsung hero of applications in my opinion. It's the one place you can write and write and never worry about file size. It's a copy and paste haven for serialz, draft letters and game designs. Notepad is often the middleman in my life. Something I will have written in a notebook usually gets transferred into the textual black and white goodness of Notepad, before becoming the product of whatever the idea that is written, is. Wordpad never caught on, and people produced only shit documents in it. MS Word didn't even come with Windows unless you bought a bundle. But Notepad has been there, through and through, since Windows 3.1 - and has never changed. Simplicity to write and re-arrange - here's to you, Notepad :)
And that's it. The important part was about Kinky Island :P
Wednesday, 22 June 2011
Breathe
Had a bit of a breather this month, in terms of games. It would appear NOTT was received well, although the comments have been far and few I can happily report Steve Brown from Adventure Gamers wrote "Screen 7 have provided a truly strange experience in their latest offering." whilst Andrew MacCormack from the AGS community defines it as a "scrotal masterpiece" :D They are right, it is both strange and scrotal.
The soundtrack is available, for a dollar, dollar, cos dollar's what I need. See here. I'm having some FTP problems preventing me from updating any websites til the turn of next month, (or ditching my current ISP and joining another one) but that's just as well - like I said, it's breather month. The last 4 months were pretty intense game making times :D
However - things have not suffered in the least. Luckily, I've been able to concentrate on Ben Jordan 2 movie. And in the last month we've shot some great chase sequences locally. A special preview of an early draft scene in the movie, which happens away from the action in Italy can be watched here!
With literally weeks before Mittens begins, the time from now til then is going to be filled with all the final scenes needed to complete the 70 minute movie. I'll be taking it in draft form to Mittens and hopefully having the characters record various dubs to fill the awful gaps in sound produced by me using Long Play recording on camera at the time, (I was warned!). I also have to ask Grundy to make a special "in-game sequence" for the movie. He's also agreed to direct a BJ short at Mittens...maybe...
May not have been using AGS recently, but I've begun patching up the holes in design for Fountain of Youth and making sure the story is entirely complete. I know work continues on the game itself, but that's not something I see much of personally right now with my limited internet set up, but Paul is happily coordinating the development and utilizing the other team members very well, giving me time to focus on the story & design, and puzzles...uh oh! ;) Use Indy with Toilet.
Lots of exciting stuff, and production is generally steady. We realized 200 rooms was over ambitious, but Misja has been keen to push for 150. Who knows :) Thanks to everyone who's recently donated and continued to support the project! It was also great to get some feedback on Jan's arcade fighter - with one AGS member called Progz saying "What ze herr Hitler is thiz! Zis is ze stupid!" or something. :P
After a several month dry spell - I finally saw the latest working version of Primordia and have been able to write a couple of brand new tracks, including my first ever 10 minute background piece. Considering all the music I've done in the last two years has pretty much been through inspiration from working on Primordia, it's great to get back into the project that's been a real eye-opener in music making for me.
The game itself looks great - and much more polished than ever. The music works and I'm thankful to the team for being supportive about it! Be sure to try "Beacon" by Pinback over at AGS to get a feel for the style up-coming in Primordia. I also got the OLD video back online on my alternative youtube account. Search "primordia game" on youtube.
Well - that's all the stuff that matters in the internet world. In the real world, things haven't been quite as perky. But things to come are still very intriguing :)
Thanks for reading!
The soundtrack is available, for a dollar, dollar, cos dollar's what I need. See here. I'm having some FTP problems preventing me from updating any websites til the turn of next month, (or ditching my current ISP and joining another one) but that's just as well - like I said, it's breather month. The last 4 months were pretty intense game making times :D
However - things have not suffered in the least. Luckily, I've been able to concentrate on Ben Jordan 2 movie. And in the last month we've shot some great chase sequences locally. A special preview of an early draft scene in the movie, which happens away from the action in Italy can be watched here!
With literally weeks before Mittens begins, the time from now til then is going to be filled with all the final scenes needed to complete the 70 minute movie. I'll be taking it in draft form to Mittens and hopefully having the characters record various dubs to fill the awful gaps in sound produced by me using Long Play recording on camera at the time, (I was warned!). I also have to ask Grundy to make a special "in-game sequence" for the movie. He's also agreed to direct a BJ short at Mittens...maybe...
May not have been using AGS recently, but I've begun patching up the holes in design for Fountain of Youth and making sure the story is entirely complete. I know work continues on the game itself, but that's not something I see much of personally right now with my limited internet set up, but Paul is happily coordinating the development and utilizing the other team members very well, giving me time to focus on the story & design, and puzzles...uh oh! ;) Use Indy with Toilet.
Lots of exciting stuff, and production is generally steady. We realized 200 rooms was over ambitious, but Misja has been keen to push for 150. Who knows :) Thanks to everyone who's recently donated and continued to support the project! It was also great to get some feedback on Jan's arcade fighter - with one AGS member called Progz saying "What ze herr Hitler is thiz! Zis is ze stupid!" or something. :P
After a several month dry spell - I finally saw the latest working version of Primordia and have been able to write a couple of brand new tracks, including my first ever 10 minute background piece. Considering all the music I've done in the last two years has pretty much been through inspiration from working on Primordia, it's great to get back into the project that's been a real eye-opener in music making for me.
The game itself looks great - and much more polished than ever. The music works and I'm thankful to the team for being supportive about it! Be sure to try "Beacon" by Pinback over at AGS to get a feel for the style up-coming in Primordia. I also got the OLD video back online on my alternative youtube account. Search "primordia game" on youtube.
Well - that's all the stuff that matters in the internet world. In the real world, things haven't been quite as perky. But things to come are still very intriguing :)
Thanks for reading!
Sunday, 8 May 2011
New game of the Testicle
I finished my parody piece of shiz! It's here:
http://www.bigbluecup.com/games.php?action=detail&id=1430
You never have to admit to playing it, but if you do - have fun!
Now to get to work on the next adventure! Wait, no, I mean finish the BJ movie and FoY... :p
http://www.bigbluecup.com/games.php?action=detail&id=1430
You never have to admit to playing it, but if you do - have fun!
Now to get to work on the next adventure! Wait, no, I mean finish the BJ movie and FoY... :p
Tuesday, 3 May 2011
Black to the future
Back from kiting and it was fun but all my mobile phone pics got deleted without any known technical reason so that's pissed me off :P But I've already launched AGS and worked on some little bits for NOTT.
Played and downloaded part 4 of the BTTF adventure game but found it to be the weakest part, last night. Been listening to my BTTF movie 1 OST and loving it :D Generally am BTTF obsessed right now and will be watching the trilogy asap!
Or, asaicbatwtv.
Been invited to Amsterdam but I'm broke so we'll see. Mate may pay for expenses (Cheers Charlie) and as he's rich I don't feel bad LOL :P Of course there's Ireland and the months are closing in, so it means after this week of real game focus I must finish the new BJ movie.
And that's about it. Game stuff time right now, maybe a release tonight? That's very optimistic. Friday is a safer bet.
PEAS!
ags, testicle, ben, jordan, movie, games, kiting, essex
Played and downloaded part 4 of the BTTF adventure game but found it to be the weakest part, last night. Been listening to my BTTF movie 1 OST and loving it :D Generally am BTTF obsessed right now and will be watching the trilogy asap!
Or, asaicbatwtv.
Been invited to Amsterdam but I'm broke so we'll see. Mate may pay for expenses (Cheers Charlie) and as he's rich I don't feel bad LOL :P Of course there's Ireland and the months are closing in, so it means after this week of real game focus I must finish the new BJ movie.
And that's about it. Game stuff time right now, maybe a release tonight? That's very optimistic. Friday is a safer bet.
PEAS!
ags, testicle, ben, jordan, movie, games, kiting, essex
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